


Spook

by DarkJediQueen



Series: Secret Agent Genius [9]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Drug & Injury Induced Amnesia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:27:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26318686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkJediQueen/pseuds/DarkJediQueen
Summary: Spencer and Q work on getting their James back to them.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner/Jackson Grimes (OC), Spencer Reid/James Bond/Q
Series: Secret Agent Genius [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/373877
Comments: 12
Kudos: 74





	Spook

**Author's Note:**

> **Year** : December 2013 Forward  
>  **Spoilers** : Up Through Season 12 of CM, Up through Spectre for Bond  
>  **Notes** : None  
>  **Beta** : ScarsLikeVelvet

Spencer sighed as he heard Q get out of bed. The man had only been asleep for two hours. The sound of Q going into the bathroom and using it before joining Spencer at the mirror showed Spencer that Q was nearly half asleep still. Spencer finished changing his bandage on his face that he had received in a knife fight during his last mission. Q cuddled into his side, and when Spencer finished cleaning off his hands, he was tugged toward the bed. Spencer laid down with Q and let the man wrap himself around him like a limpet. They had both been burning the candle at both ends as far as missions went. They had a few days of downtime of sorts, Q was just supposed to be working on paperwork, and Spencer was not supposed to be sent out on a mission. Spencer had left his gun in Q's office for it to be checked over and cleaned before it was returned to him. 

Mallory had been stressed for too long about the non-merger as it was given that the whole of MI5 was under intense scrutiny at the moment given the fall out of just a month ago and having a terrorist be in control of the most critical piece of technology that was supposed to stop terrorism around the world. England was still wearing a lot of egg on its face after all of that. It was interesting to see how the world was going to react as a whole. 

"Are we sleeping in?" Q asked.

"Yes." Spencer looked at the clock and texted Tanner that they would be in when they were in and if the world ended, to leave them alone. He didn't wait for a response at all but just tossed his phone onto the stand. It was at over a half charge so he could plug it in when they did get to work. 

A leisurely breakfast and mutual handjobs were what Spencer talked Q into before they went into work. Q was relaxed and settled into his desk when Spencer left him behind. Spencer had a meeting with Mallory and then would be in Q-Branch for the next few weeks working on a coding project that Q had him pulled in for.

"Ah, Reid, welcome," Mallory said as he stood up. He waved for Spencer to sit down at the corner where the drink cart was instead of in front of the desk. Mallory poured them both a drink with a healthy amount of liquor in each glass. Spencer took it and took a sip. It was strong but very smooth; it burned in all the good ways going down. 

"Thank you, Sir."

"You are welcome. I wanted to talk to you about your few weeks off. You are okay with being seconded back to Q-Branch for at least a month?"

"Yes, Sir. I've finished up what has needed to be done about Spectre, and now I would like to focus on Q. With James still amnesic and no hope at the moment of him coming back, Q's bunked down a little too much. He's working himself to the bone. He's down about a stone in weight."

"There was a time when you would have hesitated over that word before saying it. While most of the time you speak with your American accent, words are slipping through as well as a few pronunciation differences, like arse instead of ass. You are a great agent, Reid, and I don't want to lose you to Q-Branch for long, but I understand where your duties lie at the moment. You've lost one-half of your lovers, and losing Q to his grief in it would be devastating. You are free to stay in Q-Branch for as long as needed, but if a mission comes up that will be one that will suit you better than anyone else, I will ask you to take it as long as it's not undercover." 

"Thank you, Sir. I know that you sent Alec away on a mission straight away when he didn't make full contact with James. Has he been able to send in that report yet?"

"Yes. He finally got deep enough with the terrorist group that he was allowed some free time. The data about his mission with Bond as sent in first and then his mission so far. I'll forward it on as soon as we have it full read over by our end."

"Thank you." Spencer tipped back the scotch and drank it in two uncouth swallows. He settled the glass down on the tray for dirty dishes and gave Mallory a nod before he left the office. Spencer took the long way through the building to get to Q-Branch, including going through two other departments' areas before finding the steps that he needed. A technical computer branch had been set up in the month post-Nine Eyes, and it was where Q spent most of his time now, out of the tunnel areas where he had been setting up shop to keep away from the eyes of Denbigh. 

Spencer had passed the exams needed after that, both physical and mental. In fact, Psych had asked for three more agents like him because they felt that his brain and ability to compartmentalize and work through his missions made their jobs easier. Spencer still fucked with them a little bit as he felt like it was what a Double-Oh should do, but he made sure that he wasn't marked insane like James and Alec were. 

Q was in his office with 009 in with him. Spencer saw his gun on a tray, in pieces from where Q had taken it apart to clean it. Typically, some techs did that, but since James had left, all of Spencer's equipment was handled by Q. No one questioned the man on it. Spencer slipped into the office and shut the door when Q waved for him to do so. There was another tray with a fully put together weapon on it. Spencer had never seen the make of it before. The palm print area was slightly different from Spencer's gun, it was probably a new model of it. Spencer was more than willing to go and try it out as soon as Q deemed it ready.

"Reid," DeMarco said as Spencer sat down in the chair that was behind and to the right of Q's desk chair. There was a small worktop there for Spencer to work on his paperwork. Spencer had filled out his file for the mission he had just finished while on the flight home. Spencer booted up his laptop as he grabbed the file he was working on otherwise about the coding he was getting ready to do. Spencer was meticulous about his paperwork like that. 

"DeMarco," Spencer said when he was settled. 

"How did the mission in China go?" Q asked. 

"Well, I got in and out without anyone knowing I was even there." 

Spencer looked over at Q as he looked at the file that DeMarco had filled out. There was something wrong because Q had that smile on his face that said it was anything but good. Spencer logged into the files he had access to and found the file from the most recent mission. There were notes from Tanner and Mallory that one of the heads of Station C thought that someone who had been there as an agent from MI6 home base was a Double Agent. There was a notation that there had been seven of them, with only one being a Double-Oh in the time period. Someone had hacked the system they shouldn't have access to and implanted software that Q's newest upgrade to the system had detected. It seemed as if Q thought that it was DeMarco. 

"Good. Good. Your paperwork is in order. The newest rules have come down from on high with the whole not merger thing and Denbigh being a traitorous bastard. We are all going for another round of psych evals. Report to Psych today before you leave."

"Medical told me nothing of this," DeMarco said. 

Q waved a sheet of paper about in the air before DeMarco snagged it. He snarled at it and raised his gun up and aimed it at Q's head. Q's hand was resting on the other gun, the already put together one. Spencer watched as he pulled the trigger just a little bit, and the lights on that gun turned green before flashing three times and then stayed a steady green. Spencer frowned at that. 

"It's not Medical's job. Psych and Medical are two different branches, and as your handler for your last mission, it was my job to tell you."

"How did it get found out?" DeMarco asked.

"How did what get found out?" Q was as cool as a cucumber while dealing with DeMarco. 

This was the nail in the coffin on who the mole was. All that was left was finding out what exactly had turned him into a Double Agent. That was going to take some doing. Spencer didn't have the stomach for torture, not of someone he thought was a friend. Before this, Spencer was pretty sure that DeMarco was one of the most loyal agents that England had. Now it seemed that there was not a single person that could be trusted. 

DeMarco was focused on Q, so when Spencer settled his laptop down on the work area, and DeMarco didn't respond at all, Spencer took advantage and lunged at the man. Spencer heard the click of a failed trigger depress, and then Spencer was tackling DeMarco. There were a few seconds of a struggle, and then DeMarco was dropping his gun. Spencer spun the gun away from them on the floor to where neither of them could get to it. 

Spencer pinned DeMarco to the floor, and the man didn't stop struggling. Spencer cocked his hand back to deck the man and landed the perfect punch on his cheek. Spencer felt at least one bone in his body break a little bit, but DeMarco didn't go down. Spencer reached up to grab Q's lamp when a gunshot went off. It went right through DeMarco's shoulder and thudded into the concrete below. 

The sounds of the alarms going off entered Spencer's brain. He sat back, pinning DeMarco to the floor. The man was groaning in pain. Q stepped around his desk and kept the gun aimed at DeMarco's head. 

"Another move, and I'll have Spencer move off of you, and the shot is going through your dick, DeMarco. You implanted a simple hack of your virus, and it gave me the exact time and where it was done. It was easy to look at the cameras then. You are never seeing the light of day again, and I'll be put out if you make me kill you before you are broken and spilled all of the secrets that you gave away or were told." 

Security breached the room seconds later and took possession of DeMarco. Q let go of the gun when DeMarco was entirely in security's hands. Behind security was Tanner. Tanner looked grimly at DeMarco as he was escorted out. 

"You owe me ten quid," Q said as he handed the gun over to Spencer before he started to put Spencer's back together again. Deft hands and slim fingers worked the pieces together. "Pull the trigger just slightly on that gun, please, Spencer." 

Spencer did as Q asked and watched as Q raised up Spencer's gun and fired it, only nothing happened. Spencer could see the glowing green lights. It recognized Q's palm print. 

"I've been playing around. This will be your new gun, Spencer. DeMarco is not going to be the last to try and shoot me. He's not the first."

"You do tend to piss off the Double-Ohs," Tanner said as he shut the door. There was blood on the floor as well as the bullet lodged in the concrete. Someone would come and clean that up. 

"An override switch. If that gun or any gun with that code inside of it is pressed just a little bit, it will stop other guns with the palm print encoding from firing, if they are within range."

"Yes. James actually thought about it before he went to Mexico. It was an off-handed comment, but I took it to heart. My gun and your gun will have it, and that will be it. No one else outside of this room and Mallory will know about it either. He sent DeMarco to me as soon as he was done with Spencer so that I had a backup, just in case. It was better us being a threat than to have DeMarco grab one of my minions."

"No shit," Spencer said. He thought about a few of the minions that were out there that would have fucked it all up. The screaming and the running and the crying. They were good techs when it was someone else's life on the line but putting their life into danger, and they are all wilting flowers. 

"Well, Mallory is sending down lunch soon, and instead of giving you the ten quid, I got you your favorite beer to drink with lunch. The fancy shit that costs ten quid a bottle. I hope you are both in the mood for sushi because that is where Moneypenny went to get your meal."

"I am hungry," Q said. 

Spencer laughed. Tanner left and shut the door behind him. Spencer looked over at Q to see that he was fine. Q hadn't killed him and knew that stakes the moment that he had agreed to what he had agreed to. Spencer just would have lives like a heads up.

"Why was I not told?"

"You do well at faking things out in the field, but given everything lately, I thought you would be too tense when entering the room. He wasn't supposed to come in for this for another two, and I would have explained it all then, and you would have been in here already when he got here. I assume that he planned to get me alone for some strange reason."

"Who knows." Spencer walked over to settle in at his work area while Q settled down at the desk again. A few moments later, Spencer's shoulder holster was tossed over to him. Spencer put it on and slipped his new gun into it. When he felt better about leaving Q alone, he would go down to the range and test it out. "I think it's going to take a while before I'm okay with seeing a gun pulled on you."

"And that's understandable. I didn't want to do it that way, but as soon as DeMarco left Medical, he was headed down here, so we had to think on our feet. Mallory texted that you were on your way down. If I had known that you were going to take a long way, I would have texted you to hurry so I could talk to you." 

"If I knew you were going to face a madman alone, I would have hurried. Mallory was making sure that I was okay with staying here for a little while."

"He likes having you in the field, and he's hating having you stuck here for so long with the Denbigh thing. You've done a lot of good work out there. He wants to make sure that you know you are needed. You want to go back out, you'll be able to take the pick of missions, I would assume." 

"I'm sure that I could. I'm fine sticking close to home." Spencer looked at the TV screen that was on the wall. It showed a single thing on it at all times. James's location via Smart Blood. The stats beside the fact that his heart was beating were all hidden. There was no need to know how many times James fucked her. Spencer wanted to hate the woman, but he found that he pitied her more than anything else. She would never be enough for him. His mind would heal up, the pathways that were destroyed could come back, and he would come running back to England, to Q, and to Spencer. 

"Well, the moment you aren't anymore, just say something." Q turned back to his paperwork and sighed before resting his head against the back of the chair. 

"I will. I hope that they got a good bit of sushi," Spencer said. 

Q laughed and looked back at his work. 

"After we eat, you are going to medical. I can see your fingers swelling."

"Hairline fractures. They only hurt a little bit when I move them. I'll be fine. I can eat sushi with my fingers." Spencer waggled his eyebrows at Q with a grin on his face. Now that Q had pointed it out, he was feeling the ache in them, a dull throb that he was able to force his mind away from with a little bit of thought on his end. This would at least have him benched with no missions for a while, which would make Q happy and Mallory feel a little more relaxed about it all. 

* * *

Three months later, Spencer sighed as he did what he was doing. He really didn't want to be there, but he had been ordered by Q, and while he knew what he could have refused, they weren't going to steal the tech and sell it. They just wanted to play with and see if it was something that would help James regain his memories. Spencer would do damned near anything to help James get back to them. There wasn't much that could be done with James still out and about with the Swann woman. 

Sometimes at night, when they were home and tangled in bed, sated from sex, and others just wrapped around each other for someone to have close, Q and Spencer would get into an MI6 satellite and watch James as he was out with Swann. It wasn't anything close to what they wanted, but at least they could see him. He was drinking more and more, like the James Bond that Spencer had heard about before joining MI6. The Bond, who had nothing to care for besides getting the job done. The Bond who had existed before Q had entered his life. According to Q, Swann was noticing it as well, who had installed tracks on all of the tech that the couple had. She was looking up dealing with someone with sudden onset alcoholism. It wasn't sudden, and it wasn't a new thing, but it had been in control before this. Spencer was pretty sure that he fucked instead of drank, but he was okay with James finding an out that was less dangerous. It was part of what probably drew James to having two lovers.

James would do anything for Q, and Spencer knew it. He knew that Q loving Spencer didn't mean that Q loved him less. Q had a lot of love inside of him, but at moments like this, Spencer knew that Q had to learn to understand what love was. 

Spencer focused on the task at hand. He needed to get in and slip back out without anyone seeing him. He felt shame at what he was doing, but he shoved that down deep inside. He would write an apology letter later and make sure that there were no hard feelings. Spencer made it all the way inside of the cleanroom that had been near child's play for him to break into. He had been casing the area. Then he hijacked the credentials of a scientist who was close to him in size. Spencer had learned the man's mannerisms as well so that hopefully on camera in the suit no one would notice. He had no active comm on him, and his phone and everything else of his was at the hotel room that had been rented under his assumed name. 

The sample that was being currently tested was easy to swipe, and the computer with the details was easy to hack. Spencer would make sure that his letter with his apology added in enough things to show where the system was vulnerable. Spencer was in and out in ten minutes. He was decontaminated and hit with the kill code that would make sure that any of the nanobots that had hitched a ride just in case. 

Spencer stripped off the suit, making sure to touch only a few spots like he had when he had put it on so he could wipe it down to make sure that no prints were left behind. 

"There is no need to do that," Jackson said. 

Spencer turned around to see that Jackson and Aaron were standing there. They had not been there when Spencer had exited the cleanroom gateway. 

"You know I never would have noticed you at all with the hat and the sunglasses except for the fact that you didn't catch yourself on the reading speed. I was having lunch across the way from where you were stationed to watch here."

"Why is MI6 stealing nanobots? Medical nanobots at that?" Jackson asked. He didn't look pissed, he didn't really seem upset at all. Just curious about everything. 

Spencer debated for a few seconds about how he could escape. Q had a private jet take him to the US, and he would be able to slip out. Aaron and Jackson didn't know the name he had slipped into the country on. Spencer sighed and knew that the only way out without Aaron or Jackson alerting security was with the truth.

"We need them to help a Double-Oh whose memory has been messed with. We are hoping that the nanobots will help to build up the pathways again. You've had good success in the test subjects you've used them on."

"What kind of messed with?"

"A drill to the part of his memory that was holding his personal relationships." 

"I see."

"You know, Spencer, I almost didn't even recognize you when we found you entering the building. Your face was so racked with grief. So answer truthfully right now, and it will mean the difference between you getting in trouble for being here and not. James?"

Spencer couldn't answer. He had been the strong one. Allowing Q to hold on to himself and not fall apart because Spencer was falling apart, but every day that the distance between them and James grew larger was a day that Spencer was worried about James never coming. He was losing hope, and he was losing it fast. There was no way he would ever let Q see that, though. 

"Aaron?" Jackson asked.

"Stay back, Jax." Aaron took a few steps toward Spencer and Spencer backed up in response. 

Spencer felt his fight or flight response kick in, there was no freezing for him. Not this time. He looked to the right and the left before he tried to figure out which was the best way to go. Aaron was on the left while Jackson was on the right, but that would make little difference as Jackson could start to move as soon as Spencer did. Indecision was not something that Spencer was plagued with that much, and he made his choice and started to move just at the same time that Aaron caught him. Spencer realized that Aaron had known precisely what he was going to do. 

Flinging his hands at Aaron, Spencer tried to break through the hold that the man had on him. It was impossible, though, as Spencer felt like he was being held in a vice grip. He felt the vial leave his hand and tried to grab it. He couldn't, though with Aaron's body blocking him. He shoved at Aaron wanting to get away. Aaron was making noises that would have soothed a child but just pissed off Spencer. There was no way he was getting back into that room to get more, and now his only chance at helping James get better was gone. 

Aaron dropped them both to the floor, wrapping himself around Spencer like a monkey to keep him there. Spencer was barely aware of anything that was going on around him as he tried to get away from Aaron. Spencer knew that in his state, he wasn't going to fight that hard. He could have quickly taken him down, but there was a part of him that would never injure Aaron like that. He tried to get away one last time before he slumped down into Aaron's arms. Aaron smelled exactly the same as he always had, from the first time that Spencer had ever hugged him, being pulled up away from the body of the man he shot to save his life and being hugged to show that he was alive, to the last time that they had sex before breaking up, and even to the time that he said goodbye to Aaron, the lover and not the friend. 

"Let's go home," Jackson said as he laid a hand on Spencer's shoulder, rubbing at the muscles there. 

"No!" Spencer said, and he jerked so hard backward that Aaron let go of him. He crashed into Jackson, and Jackson fell down on top of him. 

"Okay. Not home. Where do you want to go?"

"Q's watching the building. He'll see me leave."

"Not if you are in the back of the SUV we have. He won't be able to see inside of it, and I can have my driver do the driving. When does he expect you to check-in?" Jackson asked. He hadn't moved from on top of Spencer, even though it was a strange thing to lay there and have a conversation with someone. 

"Soon. He knew that once I was in, if someone was in the room, I might have to wait a while. We didn't want to trip anything, so there are no active trackers on me at all and no devices. Those are all back in my hotel room."

"Good. Then you can come over and tell us why you have been not responding to Aaron's emails in the normal way and why you want this, specifically." Jackson was holding the vial of nanobots. He stood up and slipped it into his suit jacket pocket before reaching down to help Spencer up. 

"I always seem to cry on you lately," Spencer said as he wiped at his eyes and tried to give Aaron a smile.

"There was a time when no one ever saw you cry. You buried the hurt deep down inside and pushed on. Even if we crashed and burned, I'm glad that at least one good thing came from our relationship." Aaron reached out and cupped the sides of Spencer's face before pulling him into place a kiss on his forehead. "The vial is yours as soon as you tell us everything, Spencer. I know the point where things changed, but I've not been able to find anything out about it, outside of the attack on MI6 and London by an unnamed terrorist. I've heard whispered of things, and Dave's told me what he can figure out, but none of it adds up to you talking to Jack more than me." 

"It started before Halloween," Spencer started to say as he allowed Aaron and Jackson to lead him to the SUV that Jackson was talking about. He hoped that he was able to keep it together at least a little bit. He might have a few mannerisms and things from his lovers, but that stiff British upper lip wasn't one of them. It was safe to break down in front of Aaron, it was safe because Aaron would never let him fall. Aaron was his safe place, even with an ocean between them normally. 

* * *

Q eyed the SUV that left the smaller branch of Grimes Tech with a close eye. There were four people inside of it. It seemed like two lovers and someone else who was on edge. The heat signatures were all standard size and shape for men, but the one could be a female given the lithe build on the body. He was watching everything that left just in case Spencer was removed after being caught. Spencer was still in the time frame he had given for the fact that it seemed a few scientists never left the damned building, and there were precious few windows where no one was in the cleanroom. 

Jackson had been able to keep Q from accessing the current live view feed from the security cameras, but his back up location had been a little easier to hack into. He had learned what little he could from the past few weeks, but there was not much that he could see. 

There was the feeling, though that something was wrong. Spencer hadn't left the building, and no one else had since Spencer had gone in except for the SUV with the driver and three passengers. Q growled before he pulled up a camera from the area around to see if he could rewind through it all and find anything. He stopped when he saw the SUV entering the building early that morning. The back window was rolled down enough for Q to see that Jackson Grimes entered with a driver. He was alone, though, according to what Q could see. The SUV was a different model that had the standard doors, but the back two rows of seats were facing each other instead of both of them facing forward. It was protected. Q sped up through the time after that to see Aaron Hotchner arriving not long after, in his work clothes. He parked on the street and let what looked like the SUV driver take his car into the parking garage. 

Q was about to call Aaron's cellphone when Jackson's called Q. He knew the number from seeing it on Spencer's phone.

"Hello," Q answered. He wanted to be sure that Jackson knew who he was calling and why as Q's number did not have a name attached to it in Spencer's phone.

"We have him at our house. He'll head home in the morning with the nanobots and everything that you need to attempt something on Bond to get him better. I think that with the Smart Blood that's already in him, you'll be able to marry the two together well. When you are ready for actual implantation, you can have one of the two techs that have been working on it here go over and work on it with you."

"I see," Q said. That said that yes, Jackson knew precisely who he was speaking to. 

"And for future reference, if it's for something personal like this, ask, and you'll get it with no hassle. If you need something else for a mission, and that mission has to do with Spencer's life or death, ask and you'll get it no hassle. If it's for the world's safety, ask, and I'm sure that we can find a price." Jackson hung up the phone. 

Q brought up the tracking on Spencer's phone and turned on the silent tracker that he had on him. Spencer's phone was in transit somewhere, so he brought up a live satellite feed of the area to see that it was the SUV with only the driver inside of it. It was heading toward where Spencer's tracker was pinging, and that was Aaron's house. Q shut it all down and turned to look at Tanner, who entered the office. 

"Mallory is pissed at you, by the way. He was just reading over the mission you sent 00X on."

"And?"

"He wants to know how it goes."

"It went fine. 00X is safe and sound and will come home in the morning. I'm getting ready to file his flight plan, and such on the jet I sent him over on."

"He was found out?"

"Jackson Grimes has a soft spot for Spencer because his partner does, and it seems that they did catch him but are giving it and tech to use if we can ever nail down James long enough to actually get a shot of the bots into him."

"Mallory was too confused by the technical jargon to understand what the mission was, which you and I both know was your way of getting 00X out of the country before he was figured out to be doing something like that. Next time just tell him. While you are given leave for a few off the books things if he had been caught."

"He would have battered his doe eyes at Jackson and told a sob story, and everything would have worked out."

"Is that what he did?"

"I am assuming since Jackson and Hotchner took him home with him that he told the truth and is now getting comfort."

"And you are okay with that? Him getting it elsewhere?"

"We are both stuck in a stalemate. He's always lost everything in his life that he's ever wanted, so this is just another day to him, but he's afraid of losing me, so he's doing everything that he can to show he's strong, and he can take care of me. I'm just numb. I love him, and I want to spend the rest of my life with him, but I never saw that future without James in it as well, and I'm not sure that I can go on without James."

Tanner looked at Q with raised eyebrows before he stepped into the room and shut the door. Q shut down the programs he was using to track Spencer. He left up to the one on the main screen in his office that followed James. No one asked about it, but eyes always darted to it when they entered. Tanner's were no different. 

"What do you need?"

"I need James back!" Q near screamed. He slammed his fist down into the top of his desk. He sighed and rubbed at the abused skin with his other hand. "I want my life to be normal. I was fucking happy. Then Denbigh had to bring about that merger shit so that he could make sure that MI6's control of the networks was diminished so my other lover was gone for long times for our side since Denbigh had so many issues that I think even I could write a book about them all. He's been around for work but not for anything else personal. Then just when things look like they can start to go back to normal because really Denbigh died the death that he needed to, James is running off with that woman and a head injury that was never treated properly. I've tried to talk myself out of having Mallory send a few Double-Ohs and medical to drag his ass back, but he wouldn't like it, even if it did prove that it was why he ran off with that woman." 

"Well, Mallory is half tempted to put his foot down about a medical visit and lying his arse off that it's now required given that things have calmed down and MI6 and MI5 are their own sections again. That we can't process his paperwork all the way without it. Though I would love to see the look on Bond's face when that goes over."

Q smiled. He looked at the screen, and he knew that he was obsessing, but he was adrift, and usually, James was his anchor. Spencer was just as adrift as he was, so there was no help there. Q thought briefly about contacting his brother, but he squashed that. The man hadn't stuck his nose into anything to do with MI6 since the whole Denbigh debacle had calmed down, and he didn't want to give him any reason to do such now. 

"Holmes is fussing about a visit," Tanner said.

"What? Who?" Q asked. He realized that several minutes had gone by with Tanner nattering at him. He would have to playback the audio from the room to know what was said, so he didn't look like a ponce if it was brought up alter. 

"I said that MI5 has chosen a new head given everything, and he's making a fuss at visiting MI6 and getting to know it a lot better."

"You mean Mycroft Holmes is the head of MI5 now? I wouldn't have thought that arse would ever leave the shadow part of the government working for the Queen for anything." 

"Well, it seems that the Queen is the one who ordered him to do it, given what Mallory has said. It was quite entertaining. It seems that Mallory despises the game the man plays. I've never had the chance to meet him before."

"I've only heard of him and been at meetings where he's been there. Never actually met the man before. M kept me from his clutches as she was afraid he would poach me, and Mallory has been keeping me away from most meetings where I could mouth off, and he would have to laugh instead of reprimanding me. It's quite entertaining, really. I adore giving those ponces a good tongue lashing."

Q smiled, and it felt strange. He wasn't supposed to be allowed to be happy. James was gone, and he had been an arse to Spencer. 

"Fuck," Q said as he laid his head back on the headrest of the chair. 

Q was sitting there still nearly ten minutes later, looking at the ceiling of his office when he heard alarms going off. He looked down at his computer to see that it was the prison system. He sighed and started to figure out what the hell was going on. 

Something was going on at the prison where Oberhauser was being held. That was not good. It was not good at all. Spectre, at least all of the parts that they knew about were all wiped out.

* * *

Spencer exited the jet, feeling at least a little bit better. He stopped at the bottom step, though, when he saw Moneypenny leaning against a Land Rover. The back seat door was open wide, and inside Spencer could see one of the portable kits to be taken to Double-Ohs in the field. She had in her hand a smaller kit that she opened. There was a spot for the vial. Spencer raised up the backpack he was carrying, and when he got close to her, he handed it over.

"Jackson gave me a kit to carry it in. It's good in there forever. What's wrong?"

"Oberhauser has escaped. The people rescuing him blew up nearly the entire prison, and it took seven hours to dig through to check the cell he was in. MI5 has been sidelined for this, and we will be handling it. I'm to drive you to the prison, and you are to profile the whole scene with that weird science shit that you used to do."

"I understand. This is my kit?" Spencer asked as he slipped into the backseat of the Land Rover.

"Yes," Moneypenny answered after she was in and shut the door. 

Spencer opened the kit up and saw that there was a great deal more in there than standard. The compact rocket launcher was going to make James jealous that Spencer was given it. There was a tablet that was being updated in real-time with all of the information that Q was able to get about the whole thing. 

"Tanner is already boots on the ground at the prison. The thing is that there was no incursion."

"What?" Spencer asked as he looked up at her in the rearview mirror.

"The prison that Oberhauser was being held in is tiny. The worst of the worst from every single area in the British Isles. The prison does not exist on a map. It's actually part of a nature preserve that the rest of the area gets a lot of visitors, but none ever gets close to the fencing as it's supposed to be for the more dangerous animals to have a safe place. Nothing tripped the perimeter, and no one was seen walking across the no man's land that surrounds the prison."

"I see this." Spencer looked at the map. There was a heavily wooded area that was around the outer fence, and it gave way to what amounted to moor between it and the prison. It would be hard to sneak anyone across it as a satellite set was trained on its location and scanned not only visually but also heat, and there was nothing. Q had already accessed the satellite, and after the last maintenance run, it hadn't been accessed since. 

Spencer slipped the earwig into his ear and tapped it to turn it on. "Q."

"00X, what can I do for you?"

"I want to see a time-lapse of the heat signatures over the land from the access point that they blew up first."

"Sure." Q didn't sound like he understood it at all, but he did do it. It took about ten minutes of Moneypenny's horrible driving for Q to get it loaded up. 

The heat signature was steady as Spencer watched the time-lapse. Just about every few days, a small blip happened before it was gone. It wasn't big at all and seemed to be underground. Spencer checked the logs on it as everything from the prison was an open book to him. They had passed it off as underground heat swell. It happened just regular enough but also irregular enough, and things like it had happened before. 

"They built an underground tunnel probably using heat masking suits. I don't know what the heat blip is, but I'm it's them putting up whatever they used to short up the tunnel from the top. It moved forward at a steady enough pace that I think they made it all the way to the prison and blew it that way. If they came up under, they could have melted the stone to get inside the sub-level and then blew up that area to get the most damage. The thing is that given the rate I see with the progress, they started this just about the time of...Skyfall. Slow and steady wins the race."

"Fucking hell." Q shut down his end, and Spencer figured that he was going to brief Mallory and get a team out to find what Spencer was talking about. 

Spencer leaned forward and grabbed Moneypenny's phone from where it was giving directions to get her to the prison. Spencer had her going to where he thought the location of the start of the tunnel was. It was all based on what he was seeing. 

"Where is this?" Moneypenny asked when she looked at her phone again as the end destination was changed. 

"I think the start of the tunnel or at least close enough of a location that I can find it. I need to see it to try and figure out what kind of thing is going on. Especially since I assume that it's the exit location for the group that broke him out because it will help me figure out what kind of thing is going on." 

Spencer spent the rest of the trip reviewing everything. Including the interviews that Tanner was conducted on-site at the prison with those who lived. The death toll was climbing by the hour. Interpol was on route with agents to help in the main hunt for all of the prisoners who used the time in the chaos to make their bids for freedom. MI6 were the only ones who were going to be hunting Oberhauser. It was best as they knew him best, but sometimes an excellent outside eye was needed. 

Grabbing his phone, Spencer dialed a number he knew from the heart.

"Prentiss," Emily answered. 

"It's Reid. Are you one of the agents that are being diverted to upper England for the prison break?" Spencer asked. He brought up the messaging on the tablet and told Q what he was doing. No matter what, Prentiss was going to work this with him. 

"Yes. I'm just now touching down."

"I'm going to text you a set of coordinates. Unless there is someone there. Go there and wait for me. Don't enter the tunnel. I am half an hour out now, and you and I are going hunting."

"Hunting? I like hunting. I thought that Interpol was just chasing the convicts that escaped that were not whoever was first released. MI6 is handling him."

"I need your help to hunt him. I see him for the person he is, but you and I both know the closer someone is, the more clouded their thoughts are. This man has taken James from me, Emily. He's alive but has no memory of Q or I. I need a set of eyes that will tell me if I am being stupid."

"I'm your woman. I'll meet you there. I have to change into my good hiking boots."

"See if one of your team has a pair for me. I'm just in running shoes, and Q didn't pack them. Before I was on the road, he had my gear, and I didn't figure this until we were mostly here."

"We?" Prentiss asked.

"Miss Moneypenny is with me. Alec is away on a mission."

"I wondered if he got pulled home quicker."

"No." Spencer knew that Q probably would be pulling them all home to hunt the fucker, but it would take time to finish up the missions. Every single agent in the field would gladly come home after what Oberhauser had done to MI6 over the years. If even a quarter of his claims were true, he was the author of all of the pain that MI6 had been put through at his hands. It was going to be hard to stop whoever found him from killing him, and Spencer was included in that. He wanted to slaughter the man wholesale, but then that was giving in to the baser elements of himself. He didn't figure that anyone at MI6 would have an issue with that. His friends at the FBI would, though, Spencer knew that. 

"See you there, Reid."

Spencer hung up and focused again on the newest report. Seven more bodies had been found, and one of them was not an inmate or a guard. Give the way that the area looked, Spencer assumed that it was a secondary cave-in of sorts. The area didn't seem like an explosion took it out. Not like the rest of the place and more like it had just fallen. Spencer figured that one of the terrorists who had entered the prison had been caught up in something with the inmates and a good shove into a wall, and it all came down on them. It was a mistake on the terrorists part but one that was going to help MI6. Tanner was making sure that the body was ID'd as soon as possible. It would help them figure out who had broken Oberhauser from prison. 

Prentiss was precisely at the coordinates that Spencer had extrapolated by the path the tunnel took. There were a few small caves in the area, so the tunnel's opening had to be in one of them, and this was ground zero for all of them. Moneypenny had dropped Spencer off before joining Tanner. 

"I see evidence of well-concealed but not hidden footprints in the third cave entrance, but I didn't go inside."

"Good. Good. So let's go and see what's up," Spencer said. Spencer texted Q the coordinates of the tunnel entrance, and it would help to narrow down when this started, and Q could try and see the face of people who entered around that time. He drew his gun. It had a good flashlight on it, much like Morgan usually used, but Q's flashlight was better. It was spread over a larger area and diffuse enough but still bright enough that everything was visible. Prentiss stayed behind him. It was very much ground zero for the entrance to the prison.

"This took a lot of time."

"About a year given the tracks that they left on the satellite that I can follow. Q's following up on that more." Spencer checked each of the corners of the cave before going further. The tunnel was large but narrowed, Spencer could see that as he entered it. He frowned as he saw blood, but it was leading out of the cave. Someone had been injured, and their wounds tended to the inside of the tunnel before they left. Blood in the open would not be good. It would attract animals and even searchers when they moved out of the prison. 

"So, they were planning this before he was even caught."

"We have to think that it might have been to get the son, Denbigh, out of prison in case he went. This is the only place either of them would have gone, given that they had done." 

The talking died off as they both got further and further inside of the tunnel. It was a well-built tunnel with the correct stabilization work all along it. It was not only reinforced, but it seemed that the flashes of heat were not from the materials needed to secure the ceiling, but what was on the roof to keep the heat signatures from showing up. The people did not wear the suits, the tunnel was meant to be hidden from sight at all points. 

"Do you read me, Q?" Spencer asked. 

"Here."

"The tunnel was built to hide heat signatures."

"Yes. I have you on the tracker along with Miss Prentiss, but I do not see you with your heat trails."

"It's well built as well. They had someone who does this for a living, so maybe start a search for engineers who do this for a living who have gone missing between one and two years ago."

"I'll get that as soon as possible." Q's line went dead, but he was still connected, Spencer just couldn't hear what he said. Given everything that he was doing, though, Spencer wouldn't want to.

"He's dealing with a lot right now, isn't he?" Prentiss asked. 

"Yes, but then all of MI6 is. This is the worst thing that could happen, after everything that has already happened."

Spencer was quiet as they made their way down to the other side of the tunnel. There wasn't a single thing there that was worth anything, and the other end of the tunnel led down into a rocky hill that used to be part of the prison. Tanner met them there, seemingly he had set up base there as the top of the hill was right at the level were Oberhauser was. The prison had been deemed safe. 

"There was blood in the tunnel at the other end. This is pretty safe, and the team can get through to get the collection of the sample."

"Good. Anything worth anything inside of there?"

"No." Spencer didn't like it. He didn't like any of this at all.

* * *

James Bond smiled as he watched Madeleine swirl around on the dance floor with another woman. It was interesting to see her having fun as she had not been over the past three months. James had seen the news about the prison break. However, all of those held there were found dead on the scene, there was no manhunt going on. James hadn't even felt tempted to go back to England. He had no reason to go home. Everything he felt for MI6 and being loyal to England was gone when he realized just how much he had given up. Madeleine was his last chance at being happy. He was going to grab onto that chance with open arms. Things had been rocky, and James figured that Madeleine thought that he would run home, so the longer that he didn't, the more she got worried that he would instead of less. 

"She's a very pretty woman," a man said as he leaned on the bar beside James. 

James gave him a quick look. The man was someone very dangerous. James itched to have a gun on him, but he had left it at their hotel so that Madeleine didn't glare at him all evening long. James was really regretting that now. 

"She is very pretty," James agreed. If the man was there for him, nothing was going to stop him from getting into a fight with James. If he was there for someone else and wanted Madeleine, then James was going to have a big issue with that. While other agents might go soft, James had not. He had kept up his training to make sure that he could take on anything from him past that would attempt to go after him first. There was little that James could do to minimize anything that was going to happen. He wasn't seeking this out, but Madeleine wasn't going to see it that way. 

James picked up his scotch and drained it down before stepping away from the bar as he set the glass down. He started toward Madeleine and frowned when his arm was grabbed. James turned to look at the man. 

"Did I tell you that you could leave?" the man asked.

"I don't remember you being my spouse, and that's the only person that can tell me to stay or go." 

"What about now?" the man asked, and he pointed, his other hand was still wrapped around James's arm. 

James looked and saw the woman Madeleine was dancing with had a gun trained on her. 

"Come with us, and your dalliance will not be harmed. You are going to take us to your lover, and you are going to give us what we want."

"You have my lover!" James said. 

"Not her, but the twink you used to fuck inside of MI6."

James tried to figure out what twink he would have fucked inside of MI6. There wasn't a single person that he was attracted to there at all. He didn't play where he worked, that made for very bad things when hearts were broken. Madeleine was the only person he had ever given his monogamy to after Vesper. The only person that James would even remotely call a twink was Q, and there was no way that he and James were lovers. James wasn't that stupid. He didn't want Mallory to have his bollocks for garters for making that big of a mistake. 

There was a scream, and James saw that Madeleine had taken the gun from the woman and held it out before shooting her in the knee. She wouldn't kill, but she would maim. The crowd around them screamed and took off, running to get away from the violence. James turned and punched the man holding him square in the nose and teeth. He felt the nose crumple, and then a few of the teeth loosen. The man's hand dropped off of him, and James cocked his arm back to let another punch fly before he took off running to get away. Madeleine was moving toward him, and so James diverted to where she was now, and they moved to slip out the side. As soon as James opened the door, bullets flew at them. He groaned and shut the door before locking it and throwing the bar over it to hopefully slow them down. More gunfire happened in the room they had just been inside of, but James wasn't sure why that was unless they were killing the witnesses. James couldn't care about them. He could only hope that once he got away and made it known that he had, they would stop. James really hoped that they did. He fumbled at his cell phone. There was a number to call for all former agents when they were being attacked. 

James cursed as the phone was shot from his hand. He looked up to see the man he had attacked holding the gun on them. Madeleine cowered behind James as he stared down the man. Blood was pouring out of his nose and mouth. It was grotesque, but James had seen worse-looking things before. 

"You are going to come with me quietly." The man looked like he opened his mouth to say something else, but instead of that, blood started to pour from his head following something coming out of his forehead. The body fell down, and beyond him was Alec. A silenced gun in hand, held at the right height.

"Greetings from MI6." Alec was grinning as he said the words. He kicked the body at his feet away. "Though it seems that I didn't get here in time. I was the closest."

"Closest to what?"

"Agent Reid was taken captive, we assume. He's gone dark after he was attacked, and the feeds to the area were cut. Mallory dispatched me to pick you up."

"Why would Agent Reid being taken have anything to do with me? Is he the one that replaced me?" James asked.

Alec was looking at him like he was stupid. James wasn't used to that look on his face.

"You don't remember Agent Reid? 00X?" Alec asked.

James tried to think about it. There were few things he had forgotten, and it wasn't like him to forget another Double-Oh, and especially one with such a different moniker from the rest. James felt that spike of pain in his brain as he tried to think about him. James nearly passed out from the pain. He got those on occasion but hadn't gone to the doctor yet. It was probably cancer, and he would rather just drop dead than to even have to attempt to go through chemo. Madeleine would probably read a lot into that. 

"James?" Madeleine asked. 

"I'm fine, just a headache. I had it before all of this," James lied. He looked at Alec and made sure that Alec knew not to say anything. Alec was frowning at him, but James didn't care. He wanted Madeleine to have fun before he died. "Who did this?"

"Well, see, that's where it's going to get interesting because you have no memory of any of it." Alec flinched, and James knew the telltale sign of someone yelling in his ear.

James held out his hand, and Alec sighed before handing over a comm unit. It wasn't his, so Alec had to have brought it for James. James slipped it inside his ear and tapped it to turn it on.

"You are going to fucking bollocks this up, 006!" Q yelled. He seemed to take a pause. "Did you steal an earwig?"

"I might have but be nice, Quartermaster. You don't want to make James's headache worse, do you?" Alec asked.

"You are on my shite list, Trevelyan. I am going to make sure you get the worst missions. Alaska in the middle of winter. You are never going to see a temperature above freezing for a long time."

"Tell me what's going on, Q," James said.

"Agent Reid went dark as of four hours ago, two hundred miles from where you are. Unlike you two, he never goes dark like that. He was in the middle of a fight, and I was blocked from seeing him."

"Let me hear what audio you have from before you lost him."

"You are not an MI6 agent anymore, Bond. 006 was sent to make sure that you lived." 

"Just play it, Q." James didn't understand why he gave a shit about Agent Reid. There was the feeling that he needed to help bring him back and kill those who had taken him. There was a flash of a face in his mind, and the man was beautiful. He was laughing, and his hair was loose around his face, flapping around to show how curly it was. He looked toward James, and the smile turned soft and almost like he was smiling like that just for James. James wasn't sure what he felt about that. The memory was fading away as Q entered it. He walked over and tipped up Reid's face to kiss him. The pain was back as the memory fled him. The pain was less. 

"Fine."

The sound of heavy breathing was the first thing that James heard, followed by a body thudding. 

"Turn left, 00X," Q's tone was severe, and James knew it as mission mode. There was no more noise other than the breathing for several long minutes. 

"Fuck." The accent was American, and James remembered that Reid was a former FBI agent, joined Interpol before he had been stolen by MI6 for Q's pet project of agents who were more technological and brain trained than the current crop for the missions where more than brute force and quick thinking were needed. 

"My, my he's pretty," a new voice said. "I can see why the Quartermaster likes him. Though I wonder with their pet Double-Oh gone who buggers who." 

"I bet you they can't even do that. They just probably jerk off for each other or suck each other's cock. These two twinks can't just get it up to fuck anyone," a second one said. 

Spencer laughed, and there was the sound of a gunshot.

"You little fuck!" the second voice said. A second gunshot went off, and then there was the sound of a body on the floor.

"Go ahead and keep on firing," the first voice said. "You'll just draw our friends in on you quicker." 

"And I'll kill them as well." The gun went off again, and there was another thud and then more heavy breathing as Spencer ran. Q called out directions until the comm went silent, and there was cursing. Q's voice stated that all visual and comms had gone down. The whole damned city was dark. 

James' head was swirling with so many thoughts. He wasn't sure what was going on or why the men were after him. He thought about the whole thing about the Double-Oh, who was Spencer and Q's lover. James growled a little at the thought that anyone but him was ever going to touch those two. 

"Fuck," James said, and he dropped to his knees. The pain was horrible. He fought it though because it was keeping things from him. He could hear voices talking to him, but there was one in his ear telling him that everything would be okay, and he just needed to come home. 

* * *

"What is going on?" Swann demanded as Q exited James' room in medical. She had not been in to see him while the procedure to marry the nanobots and the newest version of Smart Blood, and then it was injected into James. 

"He's being examined again."

"It's been two days! You've had two Americans in to see him and a troop of others. I demand to see him."

"He's still in a coma."

"Then I demand to be told what is going on because I am the closest to him and should be the one making the medical decisions."

"Actually, Miss Swann," Mallory said as he entered the waiting area outside of James' room. "He has three medical proxies on record with us, and none of those three are you. The wishes were updated just three days before he swanned off to Mexico and started all of this. We have to go by what we have on record."

"Things have obviously changed since then," Swann said haughtily.

"Yes, they have. One of my best agents made a runner with a woman after suffering a traumatic head injury and didn't go to medical to get it checked out."

"What? No, James said he was fine," Swann said, and she looked like she might throw up.

"James would rather cut off his arm than go to medical for anything short of his limb actually falling off," Q said. He really didn't want to deal with this and deal with her, but he knew that Mallory would make him stay. He really should be the one to be there for legitimacy's sake. R and Alec were in Q-Branch trying to track down the people who had attempted to take James and who had taken Spencer. It was Q's worst nightmare. Thankfully after a good sulk in the bottom of a bottle of Alec's rotgut Vodka he made himself from a still that was hiding somewhere in the tunnels, he had come out and had become the worst nightmare for every single person in the world who might have been trying to take his lovers from him. He had uncovered so many different persons that could become an issue. There were agents ready and willing to head out and take care of those threats that Q was pretty sure that he was going to run out of threats before agents. 

"What is wrong with him now?"

"No, we have no clue, but he's in a medically induced coma while a project of mine and Grimes Tech's tried to repair the damned drill's damage. Now, if you would, please leave and get some rest as three doctors here have asked you to do for a day now. Eat some food, the commissary food is passable, but Miss Moneypenny will gladly escort you anywhere you want to go."

"So, I'm a prisoner?" Swann asked.

"No, but you could be taken hostage again and used to try and do something stupid. Though James is asleep, so it's not going to work on that end. Please do as the doctors have asked so they can take a break that they need and not have to worry about you."

"What kind of project?"

"That is above your clearance level."

"He is my lover!" Swann demanded.

Q had never felt the urge to hit a woman that wasn't trying to kill him and wasn't Moneypenny, so it was strange, and he almost didn't stop himself from actually doing it. Mallory seemed to catch onto that because he steered Swann away from Q to let him slip out of the room so that he could calm down. He sighed before making his way to his office. He hated that he had no clue what was being done to Spencer or if he was even alive. James was back, and with time, he would be back to himself, but it wasn't something that was a comfort. The memories of Q and Spencer could be gone forever. Though Q had heard the whispered Spencer when no one had said that name. They had only called him Reid or 00X to James. It was a good thing, in Q's mind. It meant that his James was in there somewhere. He just had to get a little help getting back to them. 

The cats were going to be so very happy that James was home. They were very affectionate with Q and with Spencer, but there was a sadness in them when they woke up, and there were only two humans. They missed the third that gave them food that they were not supposed to have and even let them lap at milk on occasion when he was cooking. James was just as big a part of their lives as Spencer and Q were, and yet he wasn't there. Q felt bad for not forcing this. He had hope that James would just show up one morning and the fear that pushing would push him away. 

"Q," Avery said as he entered Q-Branch. 

Q looked over at him. 

"So while we went on a little break to get a smoke and some tea, we left the branch." Avery looked like he was afraid that he was going to get shot or something. Q waved his hand for him to continue. "Well, we didn't notice that there was no one else. When we came back, your office door was shut, and there is someone in there, and the door won't open." 

Q looked at his office door. The room was darkened, but he could see the person moving around. He wondered who it was until he noticed how the person moved. It was stiff, and one arm wasn't moving at all. It was an agent who was injured and had slipped into the tunnels through their secret entrance. Q turned his head back to Avery and nodded his head. When he turned around to start for his office, Q noticed that the light was now off. He opened up the office door slowly and slipped inside without letting a lot of light inside. The agent was on the couch, under the blanket that was kept in the office. Q frowned as he looked around. His night vision wasn't the greatest, but he could see that his trash was filled where it hadn't been. It seemed the agent had at least taken care of their wound. 

"What can I do?" Q asked.

"You can shut up," Spencer said.

Q rushed over to the couch, dropped to his knees at Spencer's head, or usually sat like that. He reached out and touched, finding drying blood on Spencer's forehead. Q grabbed his phone and texted for medical to come to him. 

"How did you get back into London without me knowing?" Q asked. He pushed up with his legs and moved to where he was sitting at Spencer's hip. 

"Had a friend who got me back with no issue and then they went home. I was afraid of the fact that they knew that I was there, Q."

"They knew?" Q asked.

"Yes. They were Oberhauser's men. I was going to be killed, and then James was taken to pull you out of MI6 so they could kill you. Oberhauser was going to leave James alive after killing us, to see if he would kill himself."

"Oh, love," Q said. There was a light rap on the door before it was opened up. "Hello, Doctor Heather."

"Q, Reid. It's good to see you alive, Reid. Is it okay if I turn on the lights?"

"Sure. I have a ringing headache though so I'm going to close my eyes. If you shine your damned penlight in them, I'll break it and probably your hand. I know I have a concussion. I've had it since the fuckers tried to knock me out to take me away. I escaped, though, and got away. They kept on hunting me. So I called a friend to have them come and get me since they were close."

"Yes, you've mentioned the friend before," Q said just as Doctor Heather turned on the lights. Q hissed as he took in his lover. He was covered in blood and bruises. At least the little bit of skin that Q could see was covered in bruises. "Who is it?"

"Oh, I should have said that huh? Felix. Well, I guess he isn't a friend of mine but of James' and he was willing to do anything to help. He's here in London still, waiting to see if he can be of more help, like knocking in James' head, but I told him no."

"He's out of it a little, isn't he?" Q asked.

"His eyes are glassy, so I would say that he self-medicated with something that wouldn't hurt his concussion. He's at least smart like that. Can you walk?"

"Nope. I used up every single bit of energy that I had getting up here. You'll have to gurney me down."

"Then I had better get that. One room or two, Q?"

"One."

"Why would I need two rooms?" Spencer asked. He cracked his eyes open just a little bit and closed then right away, groaning and throwing an arm over his eyes.

"They did go after James, and so he was brought back in, unconscious. His head was hurting, and it made him pass out. So I had him treated with the nanobots. They are married to the Smart Blood, and when they are done, they will leave his system. He's asleep, so you can both go into the same room."

"What about her?" Spencer asked. He sounded a little more serious now, but Q knew that wouldn't last. 

"She's here and taking a short break. I nearly punched her."

"I would have paid money for that. Yeah, stick me in the room with James." Spencer closed his eyes, but he didn't go to sleep, but his breathing evened out. Like just knowing that James was safe was all he needed to feel safe and to relax. 

It was over two hours before Spencer was put into a room with James as James had needed to be moved to a larger room to allow for equipment for both of them to fit. Spencer was asleep, a drugged sleep, according to Doctor Heather. He needed rest to heal his body, so he had consented to a light grade medical coma. 

Q looked at both of them, asleep in the beds. He heard the door open and didn't turn until he heard a gasp. 

"What is going on here?!" Swann demanded.

"We had another agent who was injured in the line of duty, and since they are both in medical comas, it was easier to put them into the same room. What are you doing here?" 

"I..." Swann trailed off as she looked at James. 

There were tears in her eyes, and for a few seconds, Q almost believed them. There had been a few things in James' blood work that had been a little worrisome, so more had been called up. 

"What are you doing to him?"

"Healing him," Q said. 

"I'm going to take this to the police."

"Please do," Q said. He watched as the tears in her eyes dried up as she learned that he wasn't going to do what she wanted. 

Swann huffed and stormed out of the room. Q really hoped she just stayed away for the rest of his life, but he knew that wasn't going to happen. She seemed like the type of woman who never let go of things once they were hers. It was the kind of woman that Q hated just because she thought she was entitled to everything. James' report on her said that she hated spies and their ilk before finally falling to the Bond charm. That James thought that she was the love of his life was something that made his skin crawl. 

Q settled down into a more comfortable chair than most chairs in most medical places, it was made for someone to be comfortable in all the time. He tucked his legs up and to the side so he could rest his tablet on his knee and work on it. He was lost in the budget and so many other things as he worked to keep his mind from getting into the loop of worry. 

There were a lot of other thoughts in Q's head, though. He had never meant to love. Not James and not Spencer. James had just been this force that he hadn't been able to say no to. His family didn't love, not the way that most normal people did. They tolerated people enough to get what they wanted. His mother had wanted kids, and the appearance that being married would give her. Her job had demanded that she look like an average person, so she had married and had kids to make sure that she got what she wanted. That her kids were going to be useful to her, she had never thought of that until the eldest one had become someone who was so much like her. 

Q slumped back, his head resting on the back of the chair as he looked at the ceiling and counted the tiles. He needed to calm down, and he needed to get a grip on things. He did not need to freak out and do something stupid, not while both of his lovers were so vulnerable.

"Q?" A voice asked. 

Q turned to see that it was Doctor Heather, but behind her were three Double-Ohs. Q swallowed and sat up straight. 

"Have you seen Miss Swann?" Doctor Heather asked.

"She left in a huff after gaining entry to the room."

"Go," Doctor Heather said. All three Double-Ohs turned and left.

"What?" Q asked. 

"She's being looked for because we finally figured out what the drug was that was in James' system. It was a new drug that was being developed to help returning soldiers and help them suppress while they work through things. It's not supposed to be used long term, and it's not supposed to be used outside of a full care team, making sure there are no issues. I took a test of James' hair as well, and he's been dosed with it since about the time that he went with Swann."

"She's been keeping his memories suppressed?" Q asked.

"I think she took advantage of the fact that he didn't have memories right then about anything that he cared about. I can't say for sure. She's not left the building so the Double-Ohs will find her. You are to stay here, and we will have Moneypenny and another Double-Oh outside the door chatting and the like so that she doesn't freak out to find the room under guard when she does come back." 

"If the drill didn't take them, then why were they gone?"

"Swelling. We think it was the swelling, and then the drugs that she was giving him kept them suppressed. The human brain is still a mystery to many, Q. I can't tell you how those memories were suppressed, but given that she kept on doing it, she knew that something would make James leave her."

"She knew about it from working where she did. I'll set my branch looking for how she has gotten a hold of the drug and how many ways it can be given so we can narrow down how she was giving it to him."

"It's an injection, Q. So I can't help but wonder just how she was doing that."

"James is too paranoid for that shit."

"Yes. Look, once he wakes up, you know that he is not going to want to stay here. No matter what he thinks of who is who. So do you have the place to keep him there with you? Without him sleeping in bed with the two of you?"

"Yes. I can have Tanner go over and set up the guest room. It has its own bathroom, and we can make it look like he lives there. The good thing is that his paranoia will make him think we are lying, but the cats will respond to him coming back to make him trust. He's always said that animals were smarter than humans in cases like that."

"Yes. I heard of the time that a mother cat and her kittens saved his life because they all took off running from a team that was moving in on him. He was able to escape from the team as he followed the cats."

"Yes. He told that entire story to Mombi more than once when she was laid up after falling on the pot she knocked off the stand and gave herself some wounds that needed stitches. When she would get restless or was fighting sleep, he would tell her the whole thing, over and over again. It was when I realized that we weren't just shagging anymore. Though I knew that at least a little when he had been the one at my place when she hurt herself and he just took her to the vet A&E to get patched up and only called me when she was clear of surgery and in recovery. I left work as soon as I could. James was in the room with her, petting her. He stayed off of mission, he normally would have gone on one even if you guys had not cleared him. He stayed though so that she wasn't going to be left alone at all."

"He does love you. We all see it. He loves that young man right there too, it might not be as consuming as the love he has for you, but he'd still raze the world for him if needed. The deeper stuff will come later. You three will make it through this. I know that you will."

"Thanks." 

Doctor Heather left Q with his thoughts about everything. The woman was already inside of MI6, so Q couldn't have her assassinated. Not that he thought that one of Double-Ohs wouldn't gut her anywhere she was if he ordered, but within MI6 at the moment, he needed to be better than that. He did not need Mycroft Holmes' eye turned toward him. 

Q brought up the messenger app that he needed to message R with. He would set all of his minions on figuring everything to do with Swann and her plans to keep someone that wasn't hers. She would break-in time with interrogation when someone got their hands on her. Q wanted to have everything needed to make sure that she did break. 

The phone in the room rang, so Q reached over and grabbed it. 

"Hello," Q said into the phone. 

"Q, we have her," Mallory said. 

"Why did you not call my cell, sir?"

"We have activated the cage you laid into the walls to make sure that signals in and out of medical didn't happen. This was the only option. She was trying to get into files to figure out who Bond's lover was. She was quite put out when she was found. I would like you to watch the interrogation. I have not added torture into the mix for being approved yet, but we both know that sometimes, psychological torture does better."

"You think I would be good at that?"

"No, but I think you could help steer it in the right direction."

"I'll join as soon as I make sure that James and Spencer are safe."

"Moneypenny will be staying where she is, and the other Double-Ohs are doubling back now."

Q hung up the phone and finished his orders for his minions and then packed up the tablet. He walked over to where James was asleep and brushed the hair back on his forehead. It was getting longer than James would like. It had been too long when he had arrived, which meant that Swann had an issue with his shorter hair. Q wondered what James would think if he woke up with his hair back to normal. 

Pushing that thought away, Q pressed a kiss to his forehead before he walked over to kiss Spencer's. They were going to be happy again one day, Q knew it. He had to believe it, or everything was worth nothing. 

* * *

It was the fourth set of interrogations in just as many days. Spencer had been awake for just over a day, and Q would rather be in the room with him, reading or playing a video game on a handheld system, which was about as adventurous as Doctor Heather was letting him be at the moment. 

James was still being kept under with his brain swelling like it was. The nanobots were healing up James, but it was a slow process, it wasn't magic. 

"I've told you time, and again, he was having nightmares, and he agreed to the medication. I'm a doctor, and I set up his plan perfectly."

"You think you did," Spencer said. 

Q gasped as he saw Spencer entering the room from the third door that led into the interrogation room. There was one from the cells, one that Q was in with the observation window, and then the third access from medical, just in case. Spencer leaned against the doorway, looking like walking the short distance he had walked had wiped him out. 

"Excuse me," Swann said as she swung her head to look at Spencer.

"You thought you set up his plan perfectly, but you miscounted on one thing, his lover, the man he left behind here in London was the whole reason he stopped being a drunken asshole. You thought that your plan would work, but the thing is that with the memories of him suppressed, he turned to his old ways of drinking himself to near death. One isn't supposed to drink while on the drug you had him on, and you didn't foresee him doing that, but if you told him that what you put him on was not for what you said it was, you were never going to tell him. It's why whenever any thought of his lover came up, he would get headaches. Or why he had random headaches, to begin with. James Bond likes what he does, but even he has demons that being a retired agent can't chase away. He loves sex and alcohol to chase those away and get rid of one, which I am sure you started to withhold as soon as he stopped doing what you wanted every time. So he drank more because while James Bond might be one to like sex, but if he's in a committed relationship, he's not going to find it elsewhere."

"He had sex with me on the mission. That's how I knew that he didn't care about the man he had here in London."

"Sweetie, sex on missions doesn't count. He needed you to do what he wanted, and sex bolsters that. You stuck by him, didn't you? You stayed with him after you got out of Tunisia. He kept you close where he could get what he wanted. He just had issues after the drill to the head, which you really should have actually given a fuck about as a doctor. Though you didn't care about anything but keeping him close to you for as long as possible. For you, he was a safety net, right?" Spencer pushed off the door and walked to where the interrogator was sitting. The man stood up and walked back to the wall to lean as Spencer took his seat. It was perfectly orchestrated, even though Q knew that Spencer's addition to the interrogation was not planned. 

The door behind Q opened up, and it was Mallory and Tanner entering.

"He said he wanted to take a stab at it. I sometimes forget that what makes him a good agent was his behavior analysis training and years working as a profiler for the FBI," Mallory said.

"It's very easy to forget that he's not been with us since the beginning," Q admitted. He forgot sometimes. 

"You don't understand anything about my relationship with James."

"It's not a relationship if you have to drug someone into being with you."

"I wasn't drugging him to be with me. I was helping him keep those memories away that would take him away from me. He wanted to be with me. He wanted the peace that I gave him."

"Because he didn't know there was something else better out there. You knew that something was wrong. Whether you did it consciously or subconsciously, you did keep him drugged to keep him with you. You only loved that version of James. The one who gave up everything that he was to be with you because you thought you were more important than his happiness."

"HE MADE ME FEEL SAFE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE!" Swann screamed at Spencer. 

"And that's the crux of it all. He made you feel safe, and you felt that you needed to keep that. That's why you kept on drugging him, even with the headaches, even with him calling out other names while he slept."

"Names, yes. Spencer and Q. He had no clue which lover he was remembering so obviously this lover that misses him so isn't even really worth remembering."

"How much do you know of the American FBI's BAU?"

"I've heard more about the International Response Team, I met the man who ran that once at a conference that he happened to be in Paris for. I was given a crash course in it. Agent Garrett said that I would enjoy talking to a young man on the premiere BAU team. I don't remember his name. A doctor of some kind. He said that he would turn my world upside down."

"Doctor Reid?" Spencer asked.

"Oh, yes, I think that might have been it." 

Spencer stood up and held out his hand like he wanted Swann to shake it. She reached out with her cuffed hands and did so. "It's a pleasure, well, not really, to meet you, Doctor Swann. My name is Doctor Spencer Reid, formerly of the FBI's premier BAU team."

Swann mouthed a word, and it was only Q knowing that name so damned well that he knew what it was. She mouthed Spencer. Her eyes widened. 

"Yes, the same Doctor Reid that Jack Garrett mentioned as well as the same Spencer who is James' lover. I have to seduce people in the field as well, sometimes. As long as when we are home, we are faithful, that's all we care about."

"And how does Q like that?" Swann was back on her footing.

"What do you mean?"

"Seeing his former lover parade around with a new man all through the halls here?"

"Q was first. I was second, added into their already existing relationship. See Q had one good kink, well he has a lot, but he really likes watching, listening to his lovers fucking other people. It works well on missions. He listens, and we enjoy that he listens, helps us not feel as bad."

Swann's face was comical as she took all of that in. She slumped down into her chair, and all of the fight went out of her.

"She should be good. I don't think she was evil in all of this, just selfish. I'm sure that she'll consent to be moved to a new location with a totally new name and everything. Q is very good at that. He could set you up with a new identity that would make even your parents if they were alive think that you were not their child." Spencer walked away from her out the door and back to medical.

"I don't think that anyone ever goes up against him and thinks they are going to lose that bad," Tanner said.

"He's a Vegas boy, and he tells me all the time to never bet against the house." Q turned to leave. He just wanted to be around Spencer at the moment. Lay in bed with him and hear James' soft breathing from the other side of the room. It was as close to normal as he was going to get for the time. 

* * *

James looked around the house that he was told he lived in with Agent Reid and the Quartermaster. Q had told him that he moved in after his things had been sold out from under him when he had been faking his death. The house was like a fortress. The measures that he had to learn to be able to even just leave the house made James feel calmer than he had since he had woke up. 

The memories from before the drilling into his head were fuzzy. He was still iffy on a lot of things for the years after his house Skyfall had been destroyed until before the drill, everything after was stark. He had felt bad for Miss Swann, but the want he had for her was gone. He had no clue why. He had woken up and known that he wouldn't ever be happy with her. 

"Well, hello," James said to the cat that trotted up to him, meowing her whole way to him. James crouched down before he sat down on the ground. The stark white cat climbed into his lap and started to scent mark him. He calmed down near instantly at that. This was a cat that had missed him. There was no way to fake that. Cats never did what their humans wanted. James saw the collar on her neck and found that it had her name. Ozma. 

The sound of jingling told James that another creature was in the house. He looked toward the sound to see a black cat of the same breed as Ozma coming toward him. Ozma had no bell on her collar. The black one jumped into James' lap and vied for his attention from Ozma. Ozma just moved over and allowed the other to take it all. James twisted the belled collar around so he could see. Her name was Mombi. 

"Mombi is very, very silent," Q said as he leaned in the kitchen's entryway to the living room. He was holding a cup of tea. The scent was just reaching James, it was Earl Grey of some kind. It smelled good to James. "If we don't put the bell on her, then she will make you jump, and that is never a good thing." 

"I see. And Ozma is not?" 

"No. She likes to make a lot of noise, purring, meowing, and near barking. They have missed you."

"I would say that I missed them, but I don't remember them." James wasn't forcing the memories. He had been in Medical for longer than he would like trying to force memories. Having a gap in his memory as large as it was, was not a good thing. There were enemies that he would never know because of it. "Where is Agent Reid?"

"You can call him Spencer. You have. I know that you don't remember, but we live together, and anything less than first names is kind of rude." Q had a little smile on his face as he said it. 

"I will work on that." James smelled coffee next. It smelled delicious. There was also the scent of cigarettes. His stomach curled at the thought of getting those into him. He stood up, Ozma jumping down, and he just picked up Mombi like it was normal. The cat settled into his arms, and he gave her a good scratch on the head for it. The doctor said there would be things that happened that would feel normal but not be something he remembered doing, he was told to not fight them. So he wasn't going to. He carried Mombi with him into the kitchen and found Reid, no Spencer. He needed to try and remember to call him Spencer standing at the stove. He had a cup of coffee sitting beside him, and a curl of spoke came around his face before being sucked up into the ventilation system. "You don't smoke."

"I used to not smoke," Spencer said as he turned around. There were several pans on low at the stove. James' stomach growled. He was hungry. While food had been brought to James in Medical, there was something about cooking from home. 

James settled Mombi onto the floor and walked around to find the pack of cigarettes. It had money tucked into the front like James always did. Enough for another pack, just in case he was out and about and took his home back with him instead of his metal case. He wondered where his metal case was. He hadn't thought about it much, leaving most things that reminded him of MI6 behind when he had left with Miss Swann. He still didn't understand why he had cut himself off from MI6 so quickly and so much. There was talk that the drugs had suppressed a few memories that he had woke up having again. James had no clue, but he was happy to be somewhere that he felt safe. 

Reaching out, James grabbed the lighter and a cigarette before lighting it and taking a puff. "Only here in the kitchen, right?" James asked, a small memory intruding of Q in a strop about James smoking everywhere. He felt a tiny bit of lust flare at the memory but pushed that down. He had seen Q and Spencer kissing before Spencer had left to get the house ready for James and get some shopping laid in. It had felt like a very personal moment, so he hadn't let him know that he saw it. 

Miss Swann had been upset to leave but hadn't tried to stay. James had made sure that her identity and way of life would be the best that MI6 could give, and it was. James had a trust in Q that wasn't something that James liked too much at the moment. He wasn't sure that Q had earned it, but it was instinct, and James had learned long ago that he needed to trust that. His subconscious knew that he could trust Q, and so he was going to. 

Spencer cooked dinner an egg dish that he liked that he had cooked before it seemed as Q had been happy to eat it. It was covered in a gravy that James wasn't too sure about, but he ate it and found that he liked it. There was veg cooked in a frying pan as well as potatoes and then the eggs and crumbled bacon and then the white gravy with pepper in it. He actually really liked it, and he felt full when he was done. 

There was something though in the room with them that James could almost reach out and touch, an elephant some would say. He didn't want to ask what it was because it seemed that they didn't want to talk about it. Probably afraid of upsetting James with more that he couldn't remember. Alec had been the one in the room with him when he woke up. The doctor had explained it all, but it was still bizarre for him to have memories gone that he had no clue what they were. He had been pissed, but he had got his anger out with Alec. Alec could take it. He understood James' issue with not having the memories that he had. These two were not the ones to be taking it out on. They had offered up their home to him even though it had been his when he needed it the most. Even before the doctor had made mention that familiar things would help. 

After dinner was a movie that Spencer and Q fell asleep halfway through. James took that as his time to wander around the house on his own. He walked up to his room. Spencer had shown it to him when he had got there, but James hadn't wanted to look around. There was a bathroom, but there was something off about it. James stood in the center and looked around. There was something off about a lot of things there, and James couldn't put his finger down on it. 

James walked out of his bedroom and into the master bedroom. The room was huge, and even the bed was big. It was not a standard size at all. The bathroom had three sinks, and there was a hole in the middle of them. It seemed like someone's things were missing. James walked to the closet next and looked. There was space, but it wasn't as noticeable—small patches here and there where a few things were taken. James walked down the row of suits and stopped as he eyed one. It wasn't the right size for Spencer as it was too short, and it was too bulky for Q. James pulled it down and held it up to himself. It was his size. He looked on either side to see that it had probably been shoved into the wrong spot. 

It was his things that were missing from the room. James could see why his things were moved. He would not have handled that well at all. There was a difference between coming into a house and finding out that he was living with two men who were in a relationship and coming into a house and finding out that he was in a relationship with those two men. He was having an issue just seeing it without having them standing in front of him. 

The sound of shuffling feet had James turning off the light in the bathroom. He watched from the dark as Spencer and Q got into bed, falling asleep near as soon as they hit the pillow. James watched them as they tried their hardest to fall asleep. James had never really had a lot of issues falling asleep himself. When he was on missions, he knew that he would wake up and be ready if someone else entered the room. 

James slipped out of the bedroom and found a pair of sleep pants and a shirt to wear to sleep before he walked back to the master bedroom. He looked at the bed and tried to figure out where he usually slept. He stopped worrying about that as he figured that it would be best to sleep in the middle where he could have both of them cuddled into him. He slipped under the blanket from the bottom and moved between them. Q was the first to move, he rolled onto his side and wrapped an arm around James. James waited to see what Spencer did. He rolled to where his back was to James and moved back to press into him. 

There was a feeling of contentment that washed over James as his lovers bracketed him. This was nothing like what he felt when he was in bed with Miss Swann. James fell asleep with no issue, hell, he fell asleep and slept better than he had in months.

* * *

Spencer felt something strange. He didn't move at all as he woke up enough to figure out what was wrong. Spencer was warm, and at home, he recognized the scent of his bedsheets and the scent of Q and James. Spencer's heart stopped cold at that thought because he shouldn't smell James. It was the pre-dawn hours, and there was just enough light from the windows that he could see the arm wrapped around him. Q's arms didn't have visible hair, the hairs that did grow there were near blond in color and were rarely visible unless Spencer was looking for them. James, on the other hand, had brown hair that did stand out. Spencer recognized them very well.

James was in bed with them, sleeping between them. There wasn't a standard way that they all slept at all; it was usually a pile-in-method of who got into bed first. Then if one of them got up, the other two filled in whatever hole was made, and when the one got back in bed, he was left with whatever was left. Spencer sometimes felt like he hated to go back into the bed for fear of disrupting the other two. He would sometimes sit and watch them sleep. 

Spencer disengaged himself from James's hold and slipped out of bed. He turned to look at James. He had lost some muscle tone from when Spencer had last got a good look at him before he had traipsed off with Swann to parts unknown. Spencer knew that it wouldn't take long at all for James to put it back on. James was good at that and with the goal of getting back into the field as soon as possible. Spencer didn't figure that it would be long once he was cleared medically. It was something that would help James get back to himself even better. 

There was a list of reasons why James could be in bed. Spencer remembered that when he had woken up, they had been alone on the couch, and then his movement had woken up Q. They had wandered off to bed. James' room was dark, so they hadn't checked on him just so that they didn't wake him up. James could have woken up and grabbed something to eat or drink and wandered back to the wrong bed while half asleep. 

For all Spencer knew James had figured out that Q and he had been lying to him. They hadn't lied entirely, he did live with them, but they had kept out what he was doing living with them. Spencer hadn't liked it, but he had agreed to it until James started to figure it all out. It seemed that James had figured it out before anyone thought he would. 

Checking the time, Spencer saw that it was close enough to breakfast that by the time he was done cooking, Q would just be waking up. Spencer grabbed one of the robes from the door of the closet. He slipped it on before leaving the bedroom. Ozma and Mombi were not around when Spencer entered the kitchen. He was a little worried about that, so he went looking after turning on the kettle so that he could make a cup of tea. He would drink coffee when the house was up. The smell of coffee would wake up James. Spencer had taken to drinking tea lately with Q as something to help settle the man. 

The two cats were asleep on the couch, laying in the middle of James' coat. It seemed they had dragged it down from where it was hanging up on the rack so they could spend more time with at least the smell of James. Spencer usually would have shooed them off of the coat, but he figured that they deserved what little comfort they could get from it. There was no way to tell a cat why someone was gone. You could say the words, but it wasn't like they would understand it. All they knew is that one of their humans was gone, and they didn't like it. 

Breakfast wasn't hard to make at all, but it was routine enough that Spencer's mind was able to space out. He had no clue what to expect of James after this. They had been more than willing to have James live with them, and just having him near was good enough. Especially for Spencer. He was fine with anything that James was able to give him, even if it wasn't something that was standardly considered affection. 

Spencer watched the potatoes in the skillet and tried to put his mind off anything that had to do with James and their relationship. It was hard. Harder than Spencer would like it to be. 

The chime of his phone had Spencer frowning. It was Aaron's text message that came from his work phone. Spencer had two different sounds set, depending on which phone it came from. It was too early for it to be anything personal and way too late for it to be something good if it was work-related. He walked over and found that there was an image that was downloading. It was massive, so it had to be taken with the best picture quality. A message came through after that. 

_A present from all of us_ was that it said. Spencer wondered what the hell kind of present required an image of that high quality and the message to go through at that time of day. The body was one that Spencer almost didn't recognize when the image came through finally. He tapped it to make it full screen and zoomed in. Spencer grabbed the house phone and dialed Aaron's work number from memory.

"How in the hell did you catch Oberhauser?"

"It was pure fucking dumb luck," Aaron said. 

"What do you mean?" Spencer zoomed out on the image, and he thought that he recognized the area where the body was, and it wasn't until he saw the badge lying near the body that he knew where Oberhauser had gone. "What in the hell did he want with Grimes Tech?" Spencer worried that it had to do with him. 

"I was here at dinner with Jackson when the breach happened. The security team killed the other men or disabled them, but I saw Oberhauser on the screen. I went down to deal with him while Jackson called Dave to get SWAT here. He broke off from the other men. He was heading down to the Biomed area. Jackson has a lot of work down there he does in conjunction with hospitals and research teams so it could have been any of those things, but I think it was the eye that they are trying to wire into the brain to see if they can make it work as a replacement eye for people."

"His eye was damaged. How did you know what he looked like?" 

"Mallory put out the word hushed like, and the DOJ wanted our opinion on a profile on him. Dave and I worked it up with what they gave us and what I knew of him from you. Sorry that you or Bond couldn't have killed him, but I made sure he was put down hard."

"I can tell by the grouping of shots. You didn't stop firing until you ran out of ammo in the gun." Spencer was surprised at how many shots Aaron had put into him. He had kept on firing as Oberhauser went down. It was very satisfying to see him dead, even if he didn't get to kill him himself.

"I did. Official word will probably take longer to get around. Still, I wanted you to know. The team is not going to know, but they will be told when it's all said and done. Thankfully, Jackson's cameras didn't go down at all, so there is good evidence."

"Here, at least he is classified shoot on sight."

"He is here too, but you know how it goes when they want information from him. The order is to kill on sight, but the suggestion is to bring him in. He already escaped once from England's hold and tried to kill people while doing it. I wasn't going to take a chance." 

Spencer knew that Aaron was thinking about Foyet in that. Allowing Oberhauser out to come after Spencer wasn't an option in Aaron's mind. 

"Chances are never good. Q and James are still asleep. I'll let them know when they wake up. I don't want to wake them up for it."

"How is everything going with that?"

"He came home last night." Spencer turned back to the stove and turned the food off. It was all cooked, and the pans could go into the oven, which Spencer turned on warm. He slipped them all down into the oven to wait for the other two to wake up. Aaron was always willing to let Spencer talk at his own pace. "Q and I fell asleep on the couch, and we stumbled to bed when we woke up. When I woke up this morning, James was in between us."

"And where did he sleep before that?"

"I have no clue. We didn't check on him when we went to bed. The room was empty when we woke, so we went to bed, thinking that he had as well, but now you have me wondering. He's got little memories between Skyfall and now. There are some missions, but if it has to do with Q, they are gone. I have no clue what to do."

"Let him set the pace. There is no real guide on this kind of stuff, and you know it. You are going to fuck it up in some ways, but you can't help that. His memories will come back, or they won't, and you can't force that. You have to believe that if they don't, he'll still fall in love with you two again." 

Spencer nodded, and he knew that Aaron couldn't see him, but he didn't care. The cats entered the kitchen and started to demand food, so Spencer fed them, dropping down to sit by them and pet them as they ate. 

"They are here," Aaron said several minutes later.

"Be safe, Aaron, and let me know how it goes. Thank you for telling me."

"You are welcome. Be safe yourself. You've never met this James before, so follow Q's lead."

"Sure," Spencer said his goodbyes and hung up. He looked up in the bedroom's rough direction and figured that he should probably go and get dressed for the day. There was no sense in staying in his pajamas all day long. He stood up slowly. There was little more for him to do that wasn't going up to face the music.

James and Q were still in bed, both of them asleep. Deeply asleep by the looks of it. They looked good like that. Q wrapped around James. 

Spencer only had one fear in all of this. James wasn't the same as Aaron said. This wasn't the James, who was in love with Q but started to develop feelings for Spencer. This wouldn't work unless James was open and willing to that again. Spencer knew that they both loved him, he knew that deep down inside, but this James didn't have that basis. 

It was very possible that James would not want to start a relationship with two men right off the bat. Spencer would step back because it wouldn't be fair that all three of them would be lonely if it was the threesome that was the issue. 

Spencer changed quickly and moved toward the wall so he could settle down there and watch his lovers. Or maybe ex-lovers. He wasn't sure. Spencer closed his eyes and wondered if he could be happy seeing them happy. Q loved him, and Spencer knew that, but Q would do what was best for him and for James. They all had to do what was best, and if that was Spencer slipping into the background until such a time as they had their real James back, he would do it. He would hate to cause either of them pain. 

* * *

James knew something was different, almost wrong before he fully woke up. He felt the body behind and knew that it was Q. That thought alone made James want to smile. He knew it was Q. There were fuzzy memories of waking up every single morning with one of his two lovers wrapped around him or him wrapped around them. It all depended on who got into bed first and where they laid down. Spencer was no longer in front of him, and that was the reason why things were wrong. Spencer almost never got out of bed unless he had to when it was all three of them. 

Though part of that could be the whole, James had no memories thing. He still didn't have a lot of them, but he had enough to remember why he was with both of them. The lust that turned to friendship and then into more profound desire before it started to become something more for the American profiler in their lives. 

James opened his eyes and looked around. He saw Spencer, dressed for the day in one of his suits. It was a casual suit but a suit, nonetheless. James knew what the suits were for him since he had come to London to work. Armor. Inside of them, he was Agent Reid, not Spencer Reid. Sometimes he might be Doctor Reid, but more often than not, he was an Agent. That he was dressed in one today when none of them had to report to work meant nothing good. James felt the slow come on of more memories of the relationship with Spencer come onto him. He felt them, and he knew that more would be coming. 

Spencer looked like a picture of grief. James knew that he had seen that look on his face before when James and Q had fucked up over the whole Aaron Hotchner getting a boyfriend thing. James had never wanted to see that look on Spencer's face again, and he had no clue what put it on there this time. James was here, in their bed. 

Aaron Hotchner had made sure that they understood that while Spencer was a strong man professionally when it came to his life, he wasn't that strong. Things he showed people that he wanted were taken away. He lost everything that he wanted. James lidded his eyes as he saw Spencer open up his eyes. Ozma came trotting into the room and jumped onto the very small lap that Spencer made where his knees were up in the air. Mombi was not far behind, and she climbed onto the bed and settled in at James' chest. James had to fight the urge to reach out and pet her like he almost always did. 

The memories were like a gentle rainfall now on James' mind. It wasn't a deluge but just things here and there. Memories of the cats in bed with them. The stark memory of when Mombi had tried to save her human by jumping on James' ass when he had been fucking Q hard into the bed. The first smile that Q had given James that told James that the feelings were mutual but that James was going to have to do the work. The first time that James had taken Spencer to bed with Q listening in. The way that Q had held down James and rode his cock hard after that while James told Q how Spencer felt during it all. 

"What am I going to do, Oz?" Spencer sighed and leaned his head back against the wall. "What am I going to do if he wakes up and doesn't remember me? Not the way that he does Q. All or nothing doesn't count in this way. I can't demand that James stick with me when he remembers nothing of me at all." 

James always hated the cats when Q would talk to them and not to James, but he understood why. For Q, they were the only people in his life that loved him for who he was. They accepted him for who he was. To see those habits in Spencer was devastating. 

Q moved at James's back, and James knew that he was waking up. He wasn't sure what was going to happen, but he would rather see what kind of mindset Q was in with James slipping into their bed than he was making them all confront it all.

* * *

Q wrapped his arm tighter around James, and it wasn't until the name slipped through his mind, echoing around that he realized what he had said. He opened up his eyes and looked around. James was in front of him, and he could see Spencer's head poking out above, but he was on the floor. Q had got used to seeing him like that. It was his thinking position.

It wasn't a good thing. Spencer being in his thinking pose this early in the morning, with the smell of food already wafting up to the second floor, was not good at all.

"Hey," Q said. He could feel that James was not asleep, but he was playing asleep, so Q wasn't going to force him to talk to them. He would let James get comfortable about everything before forcing that.

"Hello," Spencer said. He opened his eyes and looked at Q. 

"So, what has you over there angsting your ass off?" Q asked.

"Just worried that this is all moving too fast for James. I mean last night he didn't even remember anything about the house and then this morning he's in bed with both of us. He's playing possum when we both know that he's awake."

James laughed, and Q wondered if he opened his eyes or not. 

"I may not have all of my memories back, but I remember enough, Spencer," James said. He moved, and Q watched as James held out his hand to Spencer. 

Spencer was looking at the hand like it was going to be jerked away from him. Q hated that he was so scared of grabbing onto anything that he wanted and clinging to it to make sure that it didn't go away. Spencer stood up slowly, making sure that Ozma got off his lap without hurting herself, and walked over to settle his hand into James'. James pulled him down on the bed, making him scream. Q laughed at the smile that came over James' face as he settled onto his back, Q at his side, and Spencer slung over the both of them. 

"I'm going to make sure that you never feel like you are on the outside looking in, ever again, Spencer Reid. We are going to be the last people you ever love, and I'm going to make sure that you never want to leave us."

Spencer gasped as it was words that James had said once before, in the middle of a living room of Spencer's former lover. It wasn't exact, but it was close enough. Spencer got to where he was up on his hands and leaned in for a kiss from James. James gave into it willingly. His hands tangled into Spencer's hair, and he held him close. 

Q watched the tenderness between them and was glad that they were all on their way to healing up. This whole debacle had been horrible on them all, and they each had new wounds on their hearts. 

"So, I have news," Spencer said as he pulled out of the kiss with James to duck over and kiss Q. 

Q figured that the news couldn't be that important. James slipped out from under Spencer and got to where he was behind Spencer, his hands getting underclothes, Q could feel Spencer's shirt being dragged up his body and pressing them skin to skin. It felt so damned good to feel James' fingers brushing at him as he played with Spencer. Spencer gasped into the kiss and broke their lips apart. 

James was there behind Spencer with a wicked grin on his face. He moved a little, and Spencer gasped again before dropping his head down to Q's chest, giving Q the view of James with his hand in Spencer's trousers, and it was moving in a way that Q knew precisely what he was doing. 

"I want this," James said. 

"What?" Q asked.

"I want to see Spencer fuck you and then I want to fuck him at the same time. Have Spencer feeling us both around him. Remind him that he's ours. Just as much as you are both mine."

"Are you sure?" Spencer asked as James' hand made him gasp again. 

There was a look on James' face that said that James knew why Spencer asked the question, but he didn't like being asked it.

"I'm damned sure. It's been too long since I felt you. Since we've done this. I may not have all of my memories, but I have enough. I remember what I need like this." James leaned over Spencer's body, and he shifted to where he was between Spencer's legs. He pushed inside of him in one long thrust, and Spencer's head jerked up, and he nearly collapsed down into Q. 

"Let's at least get naked," Q said. 

"Where is the fun in that?" James asked. 

"It's better to have us sliding skin on skin instead of having clothes in the way." Q reached up and pulled Spencer's face to him to kiss. Spencer gave in to it as James disengaged. 

It wasn't long until the three of them were getting back into bed, naked. Though Spencer seemed more hesitant than he had been before. Q sprawled on his back and coaxed Spencer into the V made by his legs then hooked his legs over Spencer's calves so that he couldn't go anywhere. Spencer's cock, which had been slowly softening before that, gave a jump and started to fill again. 

"Is that what you need?" Q asked. 

"Yes," Spencer answered as he sought out Q's mouth for a kiss. Q kept up the kiss but paused for a second as he felt fingers slipping inside of him. James, it seemed, was wanting to get the show on the road. Q endured James' quick and thorough prep even though he would have liked to have been played with longer. The goal was to remind themselves that they were alive, and lovemaking could come later. 

"Then get inside of me," Q whispered into Spencer's mouth as he pulled away from the kiss. 

Spencer gasped, so Q looked down to see that James was stroking his cock, leaving lube behind. 

"Tell me what it feels like," Q said to Spencer as James all but manipulated him into the position that would allow him into Q but not have Q's hold on Spencer go away. 

"Which part?" Spencer asked, he had a cheeky grin on his face, but the smile didn't reach his eyes, not yet. It was getting there, though. 

"Oh, what's going on besides your cock sliding into me?"

"James." Spencer stopped, and his head dropped to rest on Q's shoulder, and Q got a good look at James, who seemed to have at least four fingers inside of Spencer. 

"Aren't you lucky, I only got two fingers." 

Spencer laughed, and Q felt his heart swell at that sound. Laughter during sex was always good in Q's book. Spencer nipped at Q's shoulder before he pushed up to where he was at a right angle to Q. One of James' arms wrapped around him and pulled him back to him that way. 

"You are ours, and that means we do with you what we want," James said, harshly into Spencer's ear, just loud enough for Q to hear it as well. "Hands behind your back." 

Spencer did as James asked, his face a picture of confusion until James moved the hands how he wanted. Q could tell they were lying on top of each other at the base of Spencer's back. With that and Q's hold on his calves, Spencer wasn't going anywhere or doing anything that wasn't what they wanted.

"Hold them there until I tell you otherwise," James said next. 

Q wondered if this was all for Spencer. James seemed to need this, as well. Hell, all of them needed this. The only way it would be better was if James was in between them, and they were both fucking him or at least James fucking one of them, and the other was fucking James. 

James moved in closer to Spencer, and Spencer's eyes darkened that last little bit, and Q knew that James was sliding into him. James trapped Spencer's hands to his back with his body, molding them together so tightly that Q wasn't sure that Spencer could get out of it. He was the one that set the pace, driving into Spencer, which pushed him into Q. 

Q was a little off-center until he realized what James was doing with their position. Q was able to watch while still getting fucked. It was the best of both worlds. Q reached up with an arm and tucked it behind his head before he grasped his cock with the other and started to stroke. He didn't need it, but if he got to come first, he could enjoy watching his other two lovers fuck while he was post-coital, which was something that he liked a lot. 

"Next, I'm going to make love to you, Q," James said as he used his now free hand to tip Spencer's head back onto his shoulder. Spencer was like a rag doll, doing whatever James wanted. "While Spencer watches and then we can swap to where you watch while I make love to him. Before that, though, we are going to shower and eat whatever it was that Spencer cooked for breakfast instead of cuddling with us."

Spencer gasped as James's speed picked up. Q knew that he wasn't going to last long, especially when Spencer started to beg to come. That had James reaching down and squeezing Spencer's cock just enough to curtail that orgasm, and the look of frustration, as well as love on Spencer's face, had Q coming all over himself. Q waited for his body to become his own again after orgasm and his muscles to do what he wanted. 

Q pushed himself up, ignoring Spencer's outcry of dislike when Q's body left his cock. Q slipped down again, grabbing the lube where it was brushing his legs and slicked up his hand before smearing it around to give Spencer's cock a slick place to rub before he pulled Spencer down onto him. Q crashed their mouths together, taking instead of making the kiss an even thing. Spencer didn't move his arms to help support himself or grab onto Q. Q knew the moment James entered Spencer again because his whole body shuddered, and he cried out into Q's mouth. 

James settled into a harder and faster pace now that there was less chance of one of them hurting the other. Q opened his eyes to see that James' hands were like vices on Spencer's hips. They were going to leave marks, but then Spencer liked marks. He loved seeing handprints on his hips and thighs were James would hold him too tight. There was a lot that could be said about Spencer's mental landscape that he loved being marked up, but Q understood it. 

Spencer came first of the pair, his body going entirely limp on Q as he came down from it. Q let his mouth go, settling his head on Q's shoulder as he rode out his orgasm and then the fact that James was still fucking him. It wasn't that hard to understand that James was keeping himself from coming first. James thrust into Spencer a few more times before he pulled out. He came all over Spencer's back, and if Spencer had actually been more aware, he would have realized it. 

James crawled up Spencer's body and started to kiss Q until Spencer was more aware of what was going on. They were a tangle of limbs, but Q loved it. Spencer shifted to the side enough to where he wasn't going to crush Q more and made a needy little sound. James lifted up so Spencer could roll over and get his kisses from James. 

The bed was a mess, but it was a proper mess in Q's mind. It could be cleaned up when they were all ready to be cleaned up. 

* * *

James watched his two lovers as they moved around Q-Branch. Spencer had stopped looking around the room for James on a near ten-minute basis the day before. Like he was afraid that Jame was going to disappear. James heard his phone vibrate and frowned before tugging it free of his pocket. He saw it was a text from Tanner about how the new head of MI5 was going to be coming for a visit and that he thought that James would need to stay to make sure that Q didn't kill the man. 

That was something strange because usually, Q was very, very good with the people who had control of the money that Q used to make sure the agents were kept safe. James looked at Q as he moved around his office, getting intel compiled to take up to M for the next mission that Alec was going to be going on. Spencer was still going to be in MI6 for a while.

James hadn't told either of his lovers about his choice to retire from being a field agent. He wasn't leaving MI6, there was no way that he was going to allow Spencer and Q to be there where he wouldn't be able to get. M had been helping him figure out something that would fully allow him to not get bored. M didn't want him bored. James didn't think he would want to train recruits all day long, but occasional little days where he could help teach them something the standard trainers couldn't was something that he thought would be good. He could also help with missions, Q's minions did well at learning what was good and wasn't good intel, but there was a lot of time that on hand agents were tapped for that so James thought he wouldn't mind helping with that and then adding in weapons testing, Jame figured he would not get that bored. James also liked the other job that M wanted him to do, a bodyguard for Q if he went anywhere. There were some things that even Q couldn't get out of like arse kissing the Home Office and even visits to MI5. Mallory didn't trust Mycroft Holmes to not do something stupid. 

Mallory was a soldier turned political man while Mycroft was a full politician. James had met him once, and he was hoping to never meet him again. 

"Ready for lunch?" Q asked as he stepped up to stand in front of where James was sitting. Spencer was behind him with a smile on his face. Their younger lover had settled dramatically after a few days of way too much sex. Their relationship wasn't built on sex, but it was built on closeness, and sometimes the only way to get Spencer's shields down was to fuck him until he couldn't hide anything. 

"Yes, I am. So when exactly is this MI5 fellow coming to visit?"

"Mycroft Holmes is visiting here?" Q asked. There was a look of shock on his face, and James wasn't sure that there wasn't something else there, but it was gone too fast for him to notice.

"Yes. Tanner messaged me about it."

"Ah, that's right," Q said. He gave James a grin. "Your new job plan since you are fully retiring."

Spencer laughed at James. James' face was full of shock. He had really hoped to surprise them both with it. They would never ask, never demand, but he felt like giving them this, the rest of his days, even if some of the days before were still blurry, was the best gift that James could provide them. He knew that he would miss the action, but then Q would keep him busy enough with weapons testing and sometimes car driving. At least James hoped to talk him into that. 

"What little bird told?" James asked as he grabbed Q's hand to pull him into his lap. Q settled across it and wrapped an arm around James' neck. Q tugged Spencer in close to where he was standing there. James latched onto his other hand and gave him a smile.

"No little bird told, but you have to remember that I know system changes that are made to your file. I always do. Spencer's as well. If there is anything changed, I know about it."

"Does Mallory know that?"

"I have no clue, and I really don't care. It's not a shock, though, not since you still don't have all of the memories of all missions from those years. You have said it once before that you can't trust any face you see when you don't know all of the faces of your past." 

"You aren't upset that I didn't tell you first? Either of you?" James looked at Spencer.

"Nonsense. You do what is best for you, and we will adapt. Though I won't be retiring for some time," Spencer said.

Q laughed but leaned into James, resting his side against James's body. It was the most affection that Q had ever done inside of Q-Branch, especially out in the open like this. Inside of the office with the door shut was another thing. James liked this. He liked it a lot and wanted to keep on doing it forever. He wouldn't have minded going out in a blaze of glory while on a mission, protecting England and the world from the bad men that he chased, but it wasn't going to be awful to stay home and have two wonderful men to make his day brighter. 

"Eh, even if you retired from the field, you would just slot into a position here in Q-Branch," James said.

"Like you have?" Q asked.

James laughed, and it felt right and natural, even if things still felt a little stilted, and James second-guessed a few things that he was doing when he was going with the flow. It would take time to heal up from what had happened. He had forced himself not to get upset when he saw Q and Spencer talking and sharing something between them. He had left, even if he hadn't meant to. Even if he hadn't made a choice, he had been the one to leave his lovers, so they had clung to each other to make themselves feel good. James was glad that it hadn't broken the men apart, and he had come home to find that he had fixed not only his relationship with them but their relationship with each other. 

"I'm still going to train agents, on occasion, and I have been slotted into a bodyguard, so you don't kill those idiots at Home Office or at MI5." The biggest threat to them all was dead by Aaron Hotchner's hands. Spencer had told them that the morning that James had gotten into bed with them with little memory of them. He had remembered halfway through the meal, and it had been a shock. Spencer had shown them the image of Oberhauser's dead body as proof. Mallory had called hours later to tell them. James had taken the call and acted like he was being told for the first time.

"Ugh," Q said as he crinkled his face in disgust. "I wish that Mycroft would just stay away. There is no reason for him to come here at all."

"Have you met him before?" Spencer asked.

"When I was younger, yes," Q said.

James got the feeling that Q meant younger and not just a few years before when he had been a simple tech working his way up. James wondered if the families had moved around the same circles. James had figured out a long time before that Q was from the upper crust families, but he had never been able to figure out which one. Q hated that life, though, so James never tried to push him to talk about it. It wasn't James' place as it wasn't hurting Q in any way, shape, or form. James looked at Spencer to see a look on his face that James only saw when he was trying to fit a puzzle together. It was a hard puzzle, Q was that was, but it was one that kept James on his toes, and it would keep Spencer on his toes for a great many years.

It was a brighter future that James was looking forward to. A bright as hell future that he was gladly walking into.

# The End

**Author's Note:**

> I write fanfiction for fun. It's a hobby and a stress relief. I refuse to stress over my writing. What you see is what you get. Errors, plot holes, and all. Thank you for reading my story!
> 
> I can be found on MeWe [here](https://mewe.com/i/beccaqueen1), join me there and we can discuss my fics and whatnot.


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